The Semiotic Method in Art Theory and Aesthetics in the Lvov-Warsaw School

In 1937, Mieczysław Wallis – a representative of the Lvov-Warsaw School – delivered a speech titled: “Art from a Semantic Point of View – a New Method of Aesthetics” at a conference in Paris. After 1937, he published a number of articles in which he presented the application of this method. However, Wallis was not the only representative of the Lvov-Warsaw school who used semantic categories to describe works of art. Władysław Witwicki and Stanisław Ossowski did as well. The foundations of that semantic method in the theory of art and aesthetics in the Lvov-Warsaw school were created by the founder of the School – Kazimierz Twardowski, who defined a sign as an expressive object. The aim of this paper is to analyze the so-called semiotic methods in aesthetics and the theory of art in the Lvov-Warsaw school and to point out the basic assumptions of these methods and their variations and application.